Frozen treasure

Whatever happens, our food crops will survive! Safely out of reach of the effects of war and natural disasters, seed back-up samples from the world’s biggest gene banks are stored in airtight foil packages inside sealed boxes in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Spitsbergen. Wheat from the Middle East, barley from Tajikistan, amaranth from Ecuador – a broad variety of seeds is kept nicely chilled at minus 18 degrees Celsius. The seeds of some plant species will remain fertile at this temperature for many thousands of years.

GETTING THERE FROM GERMANY

Lufthansa flies daily from Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC) to Oslo (OSL), where a connecting flight will take you to Longyearbyen (LYR) on Spitsbergen. The seed vault is built into Platåberget mountain.